Why I teach..

There are times we wonder why we teach and today I thought to myself, why is it that I teach?

I know that for many of the kids that we work with, they will never understand why we are hard on them and push them to try harder.. why we argue on their behalf.. why we stick our necks on the line with unpopular positions in order to influence change.

I suppose it is because I was one of these kids.. and if someone hadn't pushed me regardless of how I was being a right little shit at times I wouldn't have had all of my worderful life experiences to date.

.. and I owe it to these kids to try and give them those same chances.

Memory

This year I was asked to assist the yr 11/12 students with life skills once a fortnight. The idea is to give the students some understanding of the skills required to succeed post school. Last week was a course on memory.

I started out by asking the students to listen to 15 two and three digit numbers. I then waited ten seconds and asked them to write down as many as they could remember. The frist time varied between 4 numbers and seven numbers.

We then talked about different ways of remembering things

a) chunking (eg it is easier to remember 9456 1426 than 9 4 5 6 1 4 2 6)
b) rhyming (During the depression I felt fine, back in old '29. or creating concentration cards)
c) acronym (NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)
d) pictorial (see below)
e) Look Cover Write Check
f) multi-modal delivery (Hearing, Writing, Reading)

The pictorial one was interesting as it struck a chord with many students. I drew a picture with a guy jumping off a waterfall, a Teddy bear, some stick figures lying on the ground, a guy jumping out of a three story window, an arrow pointing down. Then I asked students to complete the picture with other images of the great depression. They could see how interesting pictures could help them remember.

We then talked about how getting information into STM was not enough, STM information decays rapidly. For information to be recalled from long term memory reliably it has to be input many times to prevent decay. We discussed that we could apply the number test to learning.. If you hear 15 points in a class but don't attempt to remember them your brain will just forget them! If you spend some time trying to learn and recall the information you will have less decay of information and better recall. Revision of the same topic multiple times over multiple days is important. (I really like Saddler's miscellaneous exercises for this in mathematics!)

Over learning was also discussed. I often say to students we go through three phases when learning.

...duh?.............I get it!.............. I know it!
..............trying............practising

When students are in the 'duh?' phase they don't have a clue and nothing makes sense. If they try, they may enter the 'I get it!' phase where they can follow the teachers and do some work independently. To reach the 'I know it!' phase they have to practice and experience a range of examples and scenarios integrating their knowledge with other areas of discipline.

Overlearning a topic comes after this when knowing when to implement skill or knowledge occurs to the point of automaticity (instant recall without thinking). This can only happen when a student learns the skill and then actively seeks deep understanding of the topic, mastering the skill to the point where they will never forget through constant practice well after the 'I know it!' phase.

Interference was discussed and how Ipods and the like can be beneficial if used to block out background noise (eg with a song that is well loved but does not require active listening) as opposed to a new song that would "interfere" with the learning process.

I then asked the student to listen to the 15 numbers again. After the ten second wait they again wrote down the numbers.

I was astounded, 5 students had all 15 numbers correct. I've run this test a number of times to test transferral of information from working memory to short term memory(STM) but never with these results.

Some clever cookies here!

Here is another article on the topic.

Alternatives to chess club

Chess club has always been a good way to get students (typically boys) to think ahead before making a decision or committing to a particular path of investigation. Unfortunately it is seen as the forefront of nerddom. With some students nerdiness is seen as a badge of pride, but students today are very socially conscious and if we seek to capture students with ability in lower years we need alternatives to foster this skill.

There are a range of alternate games, not as elegant as Chess, but have similar outcomes. The ones that I have been investigating are Caracasonne, Ticket to Ride, Portabello market, BattleLore and Small World.

The last two BattleLore by FFG and Small World by DoW seem to have the most promise as they are infinitely replayable (like Chess) but have a different level of appeal. The main issue I am having is that they require a permanent home as a game tends to take longer than 45 mins.

BattleLore is a fantasy war game that takes about 30 mins to learn and up to two hours to play. It runs through different missions and lends itself well to a leader board type scenario. The downside is that it is only played by two players at a time. This is the main factor I rejected it as a possibility for the entry point game.

Small World is different in that it has up to 5 players and takes between 40 minutes and 80 minutes to complete a game. Its humorous and requires thinking ahead and is quick to learn (less than 5 minutes)

We have created a web server and found six desktop machines. We aim to create a mathematics lab for key senior school topics. One of the kids is formatting the boxes. Maybe we could even use my personal cals for AOE or RON to increase a session size to 10-15 students!

Things going ok.

I have a niggling sensation that although things seem to be going ok, that there's something wrong. I can't lay my finger on it yet but I feel I've been here before.

My rapport with kids is going well, no complaints.. students engaging with coursework and some seemingly really positive results. Attendance is up, kids are completing work. No real behavioural issues.

The timetable is travelling pretty well with six weeks to go of semester one.

Maybe it's the lack of that "let's attack a problem" that I'm feeling. Usually at this time of term I'm trying to be proactive about something but I haven't found that thing that has school support. It's a bit of a case of do what you're doing. There's nothing really wrong with what you're doing but conversely nothing really all that right either.

My tens proved the "when you think they know something do one more lesson" again with distance between two points. They couldn't do it on Friday.. they sortof had an idea on Tuesday but by Friday they had no trouble with key concepts such as naming coordinate pairs, calculating distances between two points graphically and algebraically, labelling axes, plotting points and the like.

Students were liking 3A MAS again now that we had finished vectors and were finishing logarithms. The usual complaints about worded problems but they are slowly getting better.

Perhaps subconsciously I'm thinking that if I'm not being encouraged to push myself I'm being directed to have a look at my teaching methods and results. Maybe I do need to be more self critical.

My experience in teaching is that asking questions like this of peers causes people to question your competency, which is hardly a path to improvement.

It's a feeling of being a bit bland ...

... and I don't like it.

Education matters

Best of luck to the new education forum in Perth created by regular posters from the Plato forum.

The link is here.

Big shoes to fill!

Teaching moments

Occasionally in teaching you have a moment that stays with you. On this particular day I was chatting with a student that was having a hard time relating to teachers. I said to her, "nice people associate with nice people." Her response was, "but how do you meet nice people?"

That has stuck with me as it says a lot in a few words. It said how she wished to be a nice person - although she had been referred to as a little shrew. She didn't think she knew very nice people and didn't really think she had much in common with nice people. She was about to graduate year 12.

It was a profound moment as by intuition I realised that many of these kids had no idea of what nice was to judge themselves by. Where in our curriculum do we examine truth, justice, honesty, doing good to others, teamwork, selflessness? Our curriculum is embedded with feminism, eco-friendliness, multiculturalism and many other analytical topics (areas where we analyse how things come about in small contexts). The loss of a true History and Geography course, English literature at many schools, discussion and debate of critical formative topics is a real loss to our society.

When students tell me what they get up to on the weekend (knowing that I will stick my hands in my ears and go lalalala when getting to the relationship stuff), I tell them that I only envisage them going home and playing with trucks and dolls. To me the males are gentlemen and the girls are ladies. That is always my image of them. I always maintain that they are, in fact, nice and that someone values them doing/being good. I remind them that their parents are their greatest allies and that they may have to depend on them (and statistics say live with them) well into their late twenties. To them this is another lifetime!

What do we give students that make them feel good about themselves? Do we show them value of the family unit, of co-dependence, of selfless giving? Do we show them the negative aspects of capitalistic dogma and expose the generation Y fallacy that life is about fame and fortune? What do we give them that helps them see that they are in fact nice.

Something to think about.

Idiot of the year award for 2009

And the first nomination for the Idiot of the year award for 2009 goes to Julia Gilliard for her school performance reports that are not league tables.

... and would anyone like to guess how long it will take newspapers to collate and release the data in league table form? My guess is not much longer than it takes me to write this blog.

Well done Ms Gillard, what a fair and equitable system you are creating for working class Australia that cannot afford private education.

I won't even start on what I think about 6 week teaching courses.. if Ms Gillard had suggested teaching apprenticeships on the other hand (we all recognise that practicum is the most useful part of teacher training).. but could teaching practitioners handle being referred to as a tradies (other than the shed boys) instead of as professionals??

Here's a link to an article with mock ups of school performance reports. See for yourself.

"In Camera"

In reading about SSTUWA, a lot of material that should be public or at least explained to supporters of the executive is labelled 'in camera'. A term like 'in camera' should be anathema to a public organisation that is elected to be representative of members.

Wikipedia defines "in camera" as

"In camera sessions, also known as executive session which are a common point of order during board meetings, where information is provided that is not reflected in the minutes, and not available to the public. Some topics that may be discussed during in camera sessions include personnel decisions, financial decisions that must be kept secret (for example, where an organization is contemplating purchasing land but does not yet want competitors or the public to know about this strategy) or other sensitive issues related to the organization."

It is the last part of the definition that is misused as anything can be defined as "sensitive to an organisation" as the organisation must define how sensitive that it is. Members of the union are misusing this principle in order to make active members of the executive look inactive by disallowing public release of their attempts at change within the organisation.

Furthermore the definition goes on to say:

"Otherwise, justice in free countries operates under the principle that in order for justice to be done, justice needs to be seen, and the admission of the public to the court is considered a right. It is also used where one party claims some sort of privilege against a document (such as attorney work product or attorney-client privileged communications) while the other protests it, whereby the judge reviews the document and determines its admissibility."

The "in camera" definition raises the point that the members are, in the case of the union, the judge is the 'union president' and the public are the members of the SSTUWA. To misuse the powers of the union president in calling for 'in camera' discussion could be seen as seeking to actively mislead members through misdirection and deceptive conduct. Justice needs to be seen, that is the role of minutes and to limit the ability of members of the executive to discuss issues and develop their viewpoint with members seems decidedly undemocratic. You would think that in times like now, where little is being actively sought, would be a public breeding ground for new ideas and direction for the union. A rebirth as such of a well directed, robust and open organisation.

The 'in camera' discussion (and the 'poncyness' of anyone using it to confuse the masses and engage in legalese for the sake of it) I found irritating from the onset and I could not for the life of me discover why. Intuition is a wonderful thing.

The involvement of Marko in the union seems to finally be opening doors to a more active union. We should all be encouraged by perhaps finally having a more representative body and stronger leadership developing.